May 6
WHEN NORA ROSE at dawn, she could see her breath inside the tent. A light sleet was still tap-tapping on the waterproofed nylon.
She dragged herself out into the icy air and put on her clothes. At the fire, Maggie was cooking a breakfast of bacon and eggs and corn bread, her usually cheerful face a damp mask of annoyance. Burleson was sitting on a log, nursing a cup of coffee, speaking in low tones to Jack Peel about the horses. Clive had emerged from his tent in a brand-new paisley shirt, this one purple, orange, and pink.
“Help yourself to coffee,” said Maggie, gesturing toward a pot standing on a rock beside the fire. “You look like you could use it.”
“I heard something strange late last night. A low rumbling, like a herd of tiny elephants coming our way.”
“That was just a rockfall. Tumbling boulders. It’s not uncommon in the spring. Nothing to worry about—unless one lands on your tent, of course.”
Nora poured herself a cup and warmed her hands with it as Jason Salazar emerged from his tent, hair askew. He walked over, trying to flatten it with one hand and finally, giving up, putting on his hat. Adelsky and Wiggett were nowhere to be seen.
“You and Clive going out again today?” Salazar asked.
“Sure are.”
“If you need a third person, I’d like to come.”
Nora glanced at the sky. Salazar, of course, already knew about Wolfinger’s gold, as did Adelsky. “You sure? Going to be a nasty day.”
“Better than playing solitaire in my tent.”
Maggie plucked strips of sizzling bacon out of the pan and laid them on a paper-towel-lined plate to drain. She poured most of the grease into the fire, which flared up, and then started making scrambled eggs. She stirred the eggs, still frowning.
“Rotten weather,” said Nora.
“Don’t mind the rain. It’s the snow I don’t like.”
“Snow?” Salazar asked.
“You can bet it’s snowing like hell in the high country.” Maggie shook her head.
“Is that a problem?” Nora asked.
“Maybe.” Maggie gave the eggs another stir.
“How so?”
“Avalanches—remember those boulders you heard last night? Or if it melts too fast, the creeks will flood.” She picked up a cowbell and gave it a few whacks with a stick. “Breakfast!”
* * *
Nora, Clive, and Salazar set out after breakfast, hiking in the rain. Hackberry Creek was running high, rippling over boulders. Once again, they had to cross multiple times, the icy water filling their boots, the rocks slippery.
They hiked up Hackberry past Sugarpine and Poker Creeks, both of which were pouring into the main stream. The canyon broadened and big meadows appeared to their right, sweeping up to a ridge cloaked with mist. They crossed rushing water once again, holding hands for support as they scrambled over the rocks and turned up Dollar Fork, a stream smaller than the others.
“Wonder why they call it Dollar Fork,” Nora said.
“Back then, silverware was expensive up here,” said Salazar, to a chorus of groans.
As they ascended, Nora noted that the valley was wide enough to accommodate a wagon. A mile up, the canyon narrowed—just as Tamzene’s journal had described—and then it opened up again into a vast meadow. The sleet stopped and the low clouds started to lift, mists rising from the flattened grass.
“Looks like another good candidate,” said Clive, stopping and looking around. “Great campsite. Plenty of rock walls for displaying an old lady.”
They split up and again walked slowly through the meadow, scrutinizing all the rock formations for the image of an old woman.
“Bingo!” Clive called out. “Here she is!”
Nora and Salazar hustled across the creek and joined Clive.
“It’s a face?” said Salazar. “Maybe. Sort of.”
“Come on, it’s an old woman’s face!”
Nora shook her head. “We’re looking for a dramatic face—otherwise they wouldn’t have made special note of it. That thing is more like a Rorschach blot.”
Clive turned to her. “Rorschach blot? Anyone can see the hooked nose, the pointy chin!”
“Anyone but me, I guess.”
“Or me,” said Salazar.
“Come on, you two! Are you sure you’re looking at the same thing I am?”
After some additional squinting and fruitless arguing, they decided to continue searching the valley walls in case a better face turned up. But there was nothing more. They gathered once again at the spot.
“I’m sure this is it,” said Clive. “I can feel it in my bones. If so, we must be near the campsite. In fact, it should be right around where we’re standing.”
“I don’t buy it,” Salazar told him. “The ground slopes here.”
Benton turned to him. “So what?”
“When you’re lying down, you can feel even the slightest incline.”
“There was snow on the ground, for Christ’s sake!”
Nora listened to this exchange and Clive’s raised voice. One thing was clear: despite the historian’s normally chipper veneer, finding the Lost Camp meant a great deal to him. And the fact was, he might well be right: the camp could be just beneath their feet.
There was a moment of silence, during which Clive pulled a long cigar with a Dunhill wrapper out of his coat pocket and used a lighter to fire it up.
“How about this?” she said. “We do a test pit or two.”
The look of annoyance on Clive’s face cleared. “Okay,” he said through a cloud of blue smoke. “That’s a good idea.”
“Jason will dig where you think the camp was most likely, while I go back down to Poker Creek.”
“But there was no old woman there.”
“Maybe she fell off.”
Clive nodded as he puffed on the cigar. “If that’s what you think best. Jason, let’s you and I get to work. Nora, we’ll plan to meet you back in camp.”
Nora was silent a moment, looking at the two of them. Then she shouldered her day pack, turned, and walked back through the meadow, toward the rocky trail down the mountain.